Eventide

Kent Haruf's novels contain large lessons. His first novel, The Tie That Binds, was about duty and its costs, and his best known novel, Plainsong, was about transcending loneliness. Eventide is about courage and its sniveling evil twin, cowardice. Haruf takes us back to the small town of Holt, Colorado -- a complicated but true place where kindness and cruelty exist side by side in the same proportions (or should I say disproportions) as the rest of the outside world. Here we find familiar characters from Plainsong, most notably the kind Maggie Jones, the ever capable Tom Guthrie, the stoic and funny McPheron brothers, and their triumphant ward, Victoria Roubidoux. And while they provide the comfortable base on which this new story is built, they are joined in Eventide by equally intriguing characters, such as Mary Wells, an abandoned mother, Rose Tyler, a dedicated social worker, and especially the courageous DJ Kephart, an 11-year old boy who has never gotten a break in his brief life but who transcends all with character and a moral strength that comes from some unknown place. Courage is found throughout Holt. Raymond McPheron's quiet courage overcomes the loss of "his dead brother, gone on ahead". Mary Wells abandons self-pity to forge a new life and DJ forges ahead and literally strikes out at the evil he sees around him. Rose Tyler carries her burdens with resolve and strength and her wards, Joy Rae and Richie Wallace, the neglected children of pathetic losers, simply survive. Unfortunately, where courage resides, cowardice lurks. Haruf's characterizations of Luther and Betty Wallace, the slothful welfare couple, and their vile relative, Hoyt Raines, are brilliant. Our feelings toward them are contradictory - on one level we pity them and their sad predicaments but on the other one we loathe them for their laziness and repeated bad choices. In the end, the courage that resounds through the novel is the ability to learn from one's mistakes. As Raymond says as he shrugs off a temporary farm hand's apology for a mistake, "That happens. You just don't have to do it twice. Pay attention next time and it'll be alright. Let's go have us some breakfast." The triumphant characters of Eventide have all made mistakes but have learned from them; the losers in Eventide keep making the same mistakes over and over again. As the novel ends, the "blue yardlights shining from the tall poles" that Raymond and Rose see on the outskirts of Holt are the simple acts of courage and kindness that light the darkness.

In Sara Nelson's book SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME, the author tells us she could not relate to PLAINSONG, that she put the book aside in favor of other books she'd rather read. How could it be, I wondered, that this national reviewer could scorn one of the best novels I've read in the last ten years? I would assume that once again Nelson will be less than enthusiastic about the sequel. EVENTIDE is one slow-moving story. Haruf fashions scenes where a welfare couple shops for TV dinners at a supermarket. In another, a boy and girl clean out an old garden shed and play Monopoly. In yet another, the McPheron brothers sell their steers at an auction. I don't know how he does it, but Haruf makes these seemingly mundane scenes work. I guess it's because of the heart-tugging humanity they express. We know these people; we see ourselves in them. I will admit it took me a while to warm to this book. Tom Guthrie and his boys are minor characters for one thing, and as a former teacher, I could relate to him. Right around page ninety or so, this becomes Raymond McPheron's book and you have to be a heartless jerk not to want to hang around with such a mensch. Raymond and Harold are having a hard time dealing with the loss of Victoria and her daughter Katie, who've gone off to college. Haruf's style is quite spare, but there are hints of Faulkner and Hemingway. Haruf does for Holt, Colorado, what Faulkner did for Yoknapatawpha County. As in the Faulkner novels, the characters are a motley crew. There's a clueless welfare couple who can't seem to do anything right. DJ Kephart, a pre-teen version of Raymond, shepherds his grandfather through pneumonia and stands up for a woman in distress. The welfare couple's uncle is a veritable Simon Legree. Haruf has the same lyrical cadence as Hemingway. Listen to this: "They left the corrals and walked across the gravel drive to the house and porch where they slapped the dust off their jeans and stomped their boots and went inside and took off their warm jackets and hats, and Raymond washed his hands and face at the sink and started to cook at the old enameled stove." Hemingway, right? For whatever reason, Haruf also disdains quotation and question marks, and he will often begin a scene without making it clear whose viewpoint it is, leaving it to the reader to figure it out from context clues. The ending will also be disappointing for some. It fades out and lots of the threads are left unresolved, just as in real life. Eventide is a blue-collar book with blue-collar characters and blue-collar sensibilities and definitely worth your time and money.

Eventide, the follow-up to the beautiful National Book Award Finalist, Plainsong is a gorgeous tribute to the hard and troublesome life on the high plains of Colorado. Like its predecessor, the understated emotionality of Eventide builds until the grip on your heart is unmistakable. For someone who never has to raise his voice, Kent Haruf is still able to grab the attention of the reader and take them along for a glorious trip to Holt. What a pleasure to read such a well written, simple, yet powerful sequel to Plainsong. Kent Haruf proves he understands the human heart better than just about anybody. You fall in love with Harold, Raymond and Victoria all over again. Look for another National Book Award Nomination for this very fine chapter in the life of normal people in extraordinary circumstances. "There are some things in life you don't get over. This book will be one of them."(Have your Kleenex ready). A must read for 2004!

Three years after the author's previous novel, Plainsong, concluded, the author returns to Holt, Colorado, continuing the story of Raymond and Harold McPheron, elderly ranchers who lived in almost complete isolation until they agreed to provide a safe haven for a scared and pregnant teenager, three years ago. With other familiar characters from Plainsong also returning in minor roles, the novel then broadens to focus on three additional families, whose new stories the author deftly juggles and interweaves. Somewhat more thoughtful and complex than Plainsong, Eventide quickly engages the reader with its unpretentious style, revealing dialogue, and often heart-tugging scenes of difficult lives.Luther and Betty June Wallace are some of Haruf's most beautifully drawn characters. Extremely limited in their understanding, they receive professional assistance in everything from budgeting to parenting classes, anger management, and lessons in cleanliness. DJ Kephart, a small eleven-year-old whose responsibilities make him seem much older, is an orphan, now living with his elderly, often bed-ridden, grandfather, for whom he does all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. He and his neighborhood friends, Dena and Emma Wells, whose father is in Alaska, spend their free time turning an abandoned shed into a playhouse, a peaceful, make-believe home where adults do not intrude. Suddenly, separate acts of fate, involving the McPheron brothers and each of these three families, upend all their lives and set in motion a series of events which will change them forever. Death, illness, injury, abandonment, abuse, and the arbitrary harshness of fate all contribute to emotional crises the characters must find the strength to overcome. As Raymond McPheron says, simply, these acts of fate and disaster are "things you don't get over," but, as he notes while he is separating cows from their calves, "Every living thing in this world gets weaned eventually." Deliberately simple in style, but polished and graceful in its realization, the novel is full of the love and travail, the effort and failure, and the kindness and cruelty that fill the lives of these plainspoken, often endearing, characters. Vibrant, almost lyrical descriptions of the land and nature are seen in the context of sudden emergencies arising on the ranch, and every scene of tenderness and love is juxtaposed against scenes of cruelty and inhumanity. A master at evoking emotion, Haruf tugs at the heartstrings of even the most stoic reader, drawing the reader into scenes of warmth and poignancy, only to jolt him/her with new scenes that kill the sentimentality. Life can be cruel, fate can be capricious, and things do not always turn out "right," but Haruf's characters somehow soldier on, with the reader right beside them, heartstrings thrumming. (4.5 stars) Mary Whipple